As of Friday August 1, when the acquisition of Powerset by Microsoft closes, Michael Stack and I will not be able to make further contributions to HBase until a process is developed within Microsoft for us to do so.
We do expect such a process to be developed at this point, since Microsoft is now a platinum sponsor of Apache.org. However, when lawyers get involved, who knows how long it will take or if it will really happen. Things are looking positive at this point, but now you know as much as I do. Stack and I will be able to commit patches contributed by other members of the HBase community, so if there was ever an incentive for others to contribute, this is it! We will continue to monitor the mailing lists and the IRC channel, but beyond that, reviewing patches and committing contributions from others, our hands are tied. Once the situation is resolved (one way or the other) we will will let the community know. --- Jim Kellerman, Senior Engineer; Powerset
